Your last point seems to be unawareness that the name given is Hamas’ official name for that operation. Using it in the quoted sentence seems very similar to, say, reporting that U.S forces attacked Houthi rebel positions in the sixth month of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Whether or not you like the term, it’s the official name and it’s reasonable to expect readers to be familiar with it.

That it's wrong doesn't matter to most people. "Occupied land" has a specific, legal definition that in no way applies to Israel or Gaza, and probably does not apply to the West Bank. And, see, already I'm losing this discussion: with just a single misused word "occupation" you - perhaps unintentionally - sewed misinformation that needs to be unwound even assuming you have a good faith interest in doing that. Most anti Zionists are simply not interested.

So, yes, words matter. If you repeat that Israel has "occupied" territory "illegally" long enough in the media, people like yourself will accept it as true without really understanding what it means.

> That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example.

I don't know what you're taking about. This is my first contribution to the thread.

First: no, you're wrong about international law.

Because obviously not under the original resolution, that would have allocated all of Israel + Jordan to Israel.

Not under the 1948 resolution. That would have allocated all of Israel (including Gaza and West Bank) to Israel.

Not under the 1967 resolution. That would leave the situation as is. Israel where it is, and Gaza and West Bank.

But let's not forget, now complain and complain how the territory "for the Palestinians" is shrinking ...

And this is in fact the latest resolution. NONE of these resolutions where accepted by ANY party they're about. Israel accepted them, of course. Arabs tried to massacre in response to every resolution. So what validity do they have, any of them? Which means the "let's just accept reality on the ground" proposal, which is close to, but not quite the 1967 resolution, is by far the most reasonable. And which one is more just? I don't know man. I don't care.

Second: definitely no.

Because Hamas is not after Gaza. Or even Gaza + West Bank. Hamas is after destroying Israel entirely. The whole reason Hamas was created is to destroy the Oslo accords, through massacres. This is the reason they exist in the first place. This is the reason they killed people, mostly Palestinians, for more than two decades.

To now go back to "international law" is ... completely absurd.

And if we're about "land should be returned to the original inhabitants". We're talking about muslims here. EVERY SQUARE CM they inhabit is conquered land. Islam "was spread through the sword". If we're going to give conquered land back, let's be consistent. Let's start with Nagorno-Kharabagh, which was conquered by muslims just 5 months ago. Of course, instead of "this injustice" satisfying the muslim side, they're already threatening the next piece of land.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68882269

Then, perhaps, let's talk about Palestinians occupying Lebanese land, because that's exactly what Hezbollah is doing. Nobody cares, because they're also creating civil war in Lebanon and attacking Israel in an attempt to create yet another war, and that's much worse than driving out South Lebanese, but it doesn't mean it's not happening.

(and we're even ignoring the fact that the two factions inside Hezbollah, Palestinians and Iranians/Syrians, HATE eachother. If they ever get what they want, that will immediately start YET ANOTHER Lebanese civil war. They regularly kill a few of one another even now. For PEOPLE inside Hezbollah, and all of Lebanon, it would be far better if Hezbollah lost, meaning both many more lives will be saved AND those lives will be better)

(in fact, if the whole alliance Hezbollah, Syria, Iran lost as a whole, through regime change in Iran, it would massively improve the lives of a great many people. Such an outcome is by far the best possible outcome)

The UN has a resolution SPECIFICALLY saying Hezbollah must leave South Lebanon, and has a military force deployed in South Lebanon that is to make them leave. Last time they tried anything Hezbollah killed two UN soldiers, and since then nothing has happened.

And yet, both of these are just okay, or at least not worthy of mention, to you.

And the list of recent conquests is long and keeps going. Cyprus. South Sudan. PNG. Kashmir. Goes on and on and on.

Second if UN resolutions are "international law", then clearly you don't care about international law either. The "Hezbollah" (and Palestinians, really) should leave Lebanon is a LOT more direct than any Israel resolution. It is totally ignored, and nobody seems to care.

No you're just not being fair at all. Every argument you make rings very hollow and double-standard. Clearly Arabs (the original name for "Palestinians") believe in military action. Well, let them accept military reality when they lose. Which is what's going to happen anyway. It is what happened every time before now. It is what will happen again.

Are you for real?

Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)

Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)

Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)

Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)

Ayyubid Dynasty (1174–1260)

Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517)

Ottoman Empire (1517–1918)

Where there is overlap, they ruled different parts of the area.

Personally, I think the idea of prior indigenous claim is counter productive, but since it has been introduced by Palestinians as a kind of volksgemeinschaft, blut und boden, Jews would have prior claim by that standard.

The folks who first brought up this "prior indigenous claim" business were the early Zionists of course. The pre-1897 inhabitants didn't have to "claim" any special rights because they were already there (give or take some forced migration within the Ottoman empire), and not trying to expand into any new territory they hadn't been occupying in living memory -- and so had nothing to justify or explain.

Anyway it's all moot because the earliest known inhabitants in the region were not Jews in any recognizable sense, but predominantly the Canaanites and other bronze age cultures. Whose presence predates any traces of the Israelite culture by 2000+ years. And who were likely the primary genetic reservoir for both Palestinians and Jews as they are currently known, via significant mixtures with other groups from outside the region.

The whole idea of attempting to adjudicate anything happening on the ground today on the basis of any of this history (or our current conception of it) is completely vacuous of course. As is this bizarre Blut und Boden reference that you're trying to asign to the Palestinians, of all people.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: we've had to ask you this once before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33220658. Not cool. No more of this on HN, please.

Here, for example, note that use of the term occupied is established enough to be used in official UN documents:

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...

Similarly, the ICRC uses presence rather than trying to make complex judgements about the relative merits:

https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....